Satellite Spies Unusual Antarctic Sea Ice

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Strong winds make for strange sea ice patterns in the Southern
Hemisphere.

In the Weddell Sea along the coast of Antarctica, the sea ice
stretched 124 to 186 miles (200 to 300 kilometers) north of its
typical extent in January and February, according to the National
Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

A satellite image snapped Feb. 22 by the Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite shows
Antarctic sea ice tightly packed in the Weddell Sea, next to
the Larsen C Ice Shelf. Ice to the north appears thin, diffuse
and broken up, Walt Meier, a scientist at the NSIDC, told
NASA's Earth Observatory. Though the ice is thin, the region
north of the Weddell Sea typically has little or no ice at all
this time of year, the Earth Observatory reported.

Cold winds driven by a persistent region of high pressure west of
the Weddell Sea are responsible for the unusual ice pattern,
according to the NSIDC. The high pressure means winds blow from
east to north, pushing ice to the north. The
wind pattern also brings cold air from the continent across
the ice, keeping it from melting as it moves northward into
warmer latitudes, the Earth Observatory wrote online.